TEAM

WILLIAM CROSSMAN

President, CEO & Board Member

Mr. Crossman is responsible for the overall management of the Company and the creation, planning and execution of business and financial strategies and corporate development activities, including capital generation.
Crossman is a senior management professional with international and domestic experience as CEO, COO and CFO of enterprises ranging from entrepreneurial start-ups to Fortune 500 level companies. He has a proven track record of successfully commercializing various emerging technologies including manufacturing and industrial systems, computer software, marine bioremediation, nanotechnology and life sciences. Mr.Crossman has assisted numerous early-stage companies to refine business strategies, commercialize new products, raise capital, license technologies, scale revenues and production, and expand into global markets. As CEO of ISOPur Fluid Technologies, Crossman led the company from product introduction to global growth with expanding applications in multiple vertical markets. Important strategic alliances were developed with Siemens, BHP, Atlas Copco, Hess, Sanwa Shoko and others, creating a platform for continued strong growth. The value of the founding shareholders’ common stock increased more than tenfold in less than three years under Crossman’s leadership. As CFO of Otis Elevator Company – Asia Pacific Operations, Crossman evaluated, negotiated and developed acquisitions, joint ventures and major capital investments in China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia. Mr. Crossman contributed to profit growth of 20% per year and market share gains of 1% per year in this mature multi-billion dollar operation spanning 23 countries, despite aggressive competition from large Asian conglomerates. The joint ventures that he helped developed in China are among the most profitable operations of United Technologies Corp today. Bill holds a BS degree from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point and a MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California – Berkeley.

JOHN A. LAWSON, Ph.D.

Founder, Chairman & Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Lawson is responsible for the planning of R & D and the supervision and execution of all chemistry activities related to drug discovery and development.

John Lawson is an expert in medicinal and synthetic organic chemistry. As a senior Medicinal Chemist and Project Manager at Stanford Research Institute (SRI International) for 20 years, he headed the Neurochemistry R & D Group with responsibilities for the discovery and development of new compounds in neuroscience area including analgesics, anti-convulsants, anxiolytics, and stroke. While at SRI, Lawson collaborated for ten years with Dr. Toll, Chief Neuropharmacologist and Board Member of Phoenix PharmaLabs (see below), on analgesic drugs under NIH grant funding. During this period, Dr. Lawson discovered the initial class of opioids capable of relieving pain without the typical side-effect problems of morphine-like opioids. After leaving SRI, Lawson assisted in the opening of a synthetic laboratory at SynVax, Inc. for the purpose of developing new drugs related to Nociceptin — a recently discovered brain chemical that modulates pain responses. Two years later, he left SynVax and founded Phoenix PharmaLabs, Inc. (PPL), for the purpose of renewing the development of non-addicting opioid compounds which ultimately resulted in the development of the company’s lead compound, PPL-103. John holds a BS degree with Phi Kappa Phi honors from Iowa State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. He was also a Postdoc. fellow at Syntex Corp.

LAWRENCE TOLL PH.D.

Founder, Chief Neuropharmacologist & Board Member

Dr. Toll is currently Professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Florida Atlantic University. He is also President of the International Narcotics Research Conference. Formerly he was Director of Neuropharmacology, Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, and prior to that he was Director of the Neuropharmacology Department at SRI International where he conducted basic and translational research in the fields of pain and addiction. An author of more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers, he is a recognized expert and leading researcher in the field of neuroscience, particularly in relation to addiction neurobiology and the pharmacology of drugs with potential addiction liability, such as opiates. Dr. Toll is a co-discoverer of the “nociceptin” opioid peptide and was part of the Opiate Research team at SRI that first researched potential non-addicting opioids. Dr. Toll has performed numerous selected assessments of neurochemical drugs for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). As part of NIDA’s Opiate and Cocaine Treatment Discovery Programs he tested a very large number of compounds for affinities and activities at the three opioid receptors, 5 dopamine receptors, several 5-HT receptors, PCP receptors and sigma receptors. In conjunction with this project, Dr. Toll and his team published the definitive in vitro profile of opioid- and cocaine-related ligands. His lab has collaborated with many medicinal chemists to characterize the activity of a large number of compounds, including PPL’s compounds. Larry holds a BA degree in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego and a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles as well as a Postdoc. in biological chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles and a Postdoc. in pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University.

TIMMY CHOU

Vice President, CFO & Board Member

Mr. Chou is responsible for the management of Company finances, corporate governance and treasury matters, including accounting and disbursements as well as the planning and execution of corporate development activities, including capital generation.
Timmy Chou’s corporate experience includes serving as a Chief Financial Officer, Controller, and CEO, as well as a management consultant for numerous companies. He is a founding partner of Spectra Consulting Group, where for more than 25 years he has performed consulting on growth issues in emerging businesses, including specialized consulting in strategic planning, cash management, capital structures, dispute mediation, and organizational re-engineering and process development. He is a serial entrepreneur and currently serves as an officer of several operating public and private companies and sits on various Boards as a director. He has participated in architecting numerous capital structures and has developed strategies for development-stage enterprises that have produced significant debt and/or equity investment. Mr. Chou is listed as an affiliate of the Wasatch Venture Network and is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution and Utah Dispute Resolution. Timmy holds a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and has pursued graduate work at the University of Utah.

CHRIS TEW

Vice President and Board Member

Mr. Tew is responsible for participating in the planning and execution of business development strategies and the active management of promotional and public relations activities and relationships as well as capital generation. Mr. Tew brings over 25 years of professional bioscience sales, marketing and business development leadership experience to the company as a sales, marketing and development executive with American Hospital Supply, CooperVision, and Alcon. Throughout his career Mr. Tew championed many successful sales and product initiatives. In addition, Chris co-founded HealthWare Management Company, a healthcare software company, which was sold at a profit to Global Software. Chris holds a BA degree in mass communications from Brigham Young University and completed an executive training program at Stanford University.

Daniel E. Levy, Ph.D.

Consultant, Chemical Synthesis and Manufacturing Scale-up

Dr. Levy is an experienced organic/medicinal chemist having contributed to the design of novel therapeutic agents targeting cardiovascular, cancer, inflammatory and CNS disorders. In his almost 30 years in industry, Dr. Levy led interdisciplinary teams focused on kinase inhibitors, GPCR antagonists, matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors and cell adhesion molecules. His work is documented in over 30 peer-reviewed publications and over 11 issued/published United States patents.  Dr. Levy is Founder and Principal Consultant of DEL BioPharma LLC, through which, he provides CMC services covering medicinal chemistry, API manufacturing and formulation development.  Most recently Dr. Levy was the Vice President of Manufacturing at Censa Pharmaceuticals and the Director of Synthetic Chemistry at Intradigm Corporation. He is author and editor of three books covering aspects of mechanistic organic chemistry and carbohydrate chemistry. Dr. Levy received his academic degrees from the University of California – Berkeley (B.S., 1987) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1992).

Timothy P. Bradshaw, Ph.D.

Consultant, Preclinical and Clinical Trial Planning

Dr. Bradshaw is Executive Director, Center of Global Drug Development, PRA Health Sciences. He earned his doctoral degree from the University of South Carolina in 1989 and would go on to complete two postdoctoral fellowships – the first in pharmacology and toxicology, at the Medical University of South Carolina, followed by one in drug metabolism, at Glaxo Research Institute. He joined GSK fulltime as a senior scientist in the Biopharmaceutical Product Development group, serving as a core team member for numerous priority R&D programs. After leaving GSK in 2003, Tim held leadership positions of increasing responsibility in several biotech companies. In 2017, Tim joined PRA Health Sciences where he has continued to leverage his drug development expertise in providing strategic guidance to both established pharma and emerging biotech companies. Tim’s professional accomplishments have included demonstrated success in critical roles across the entirety of drug development / product lifecycle spectrum, guiding projects from lead compound identification through postapproval clinical trials.

Deepa Deshpanda, Ph.D., RAC

Consultant, Regulatory Affairs

Dr. Deshpande is founder and President of Universal Regulatory Inc, a regulatory affairs consulting firm focused on regulatory strategy, operations, compliance and medical writing.  Over the years she has held industry positions of increasing responsibility in pharmaceutical development and regulatory affairs including Sr/Vice President/Head of Regulatory Affairs for publicly traded companies and small to mid-size biotechnology firms.  As a consultant Dr. Deshpande has served as an advisor to >75 biotechnology/pharma companies, investment firms, Board of Directors, providing strategic and tactical guidance on product development and regulatory affairs. Her background includes multi-functional expertise in Regulatory Affairs and pharmaceutical development with knowledge of domestic and international regulatory environments.  She has provided regulatory guidance and strategic leadership for >100 Investigational New Drug (IND) including first-in-human products, global clinical trial applications, several successful marketing authorizations (US, EU), and negotiations with global health authorities.  Deepa received her Masters and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from West Virginia University and is RAC certified.

Mei-Chuan (Holden) Ko, Ph.D.

Consultant, NHP Studies

Dr. Ko is Professor, Department of Physiology & Pharmacology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He has a 23-year history of research using rodents and nonhuman primates with a record of successful and productive research projects in areas of opioids and substance abuse. As PI or co-investigator on many university-, industry-, and NIH-funded grants, Professor Ko has studied approximately 60 newly developed experimental compounds and laid the groundwork for the proposed research by developing various behavioral and physiological measurements in rodents and monkeys following systemic and intrathecal administration of drugs. Dr. Ko has authored dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers and is the recipient of several professional awards including: CPDD Early Career Investigator Award, 2002; Wyeth-Ayerst Young Psychopharmacologist Award, 2002 and Research Excellence Award, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, 2014-2015. Dr. Ko holds a Ph.D. in biopsychology as well as a Postdoc. in anesthesiology/pharmacology from the University of Michigan.

James R Myer. BS, DABT

Consultant, Toxicology

Jim is a board-certified toxicologist and senior consultant with over 40 years of experience in regulatory nonclinical safety evaluation of pharmaceuticals and chemicals but focused to the pharmaceutical industry for the past ~30 years. He received his biology degree (BS) from Alma College and immediately started his career as a toxicologist with increasing responsibility over the years to include project management of nonclinical development for global programs with keen knowledge of the ICH and FDA guidelines, extending to drug development and life cycle management of drug products. Jim is currently providing consulting services to formulate and prepare nonclinical development plans and assist in study protocol design, data analysis and reporting. In addition, he assists with toxicology issue and problem solving as well as in interactions with and product submissions to regulatory agencies. Jim is a Diplomat of the American Board of Toxicology (DABT) and a member of the Society of Toxicology, American College of Toxicology and American Association for Laboratory Animal Science. In addition, he has several related publications.

Chantal Deziel, B.Sc, MBA

Consultant, QA/QC

Mrs. Chantal Déziel is Business Development Director & QA Projects Manager of Validapro America, a Montreal based consulting firm dedicated to the regulatory customer needs in the  pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnological industries. She is a microbiologist with over thirty years of experience in the areas of compliance and technological product manufacturing & optimization, where she managed several projects of pharmaceutical products related to drugs sterile, non-sterile, natural health, cosmetics products and medical devices according the international regulations (FDA. EMEA, PMDA and Health Canada). She has 2 years’ experience as the head of a laboratory of analytical services and 8 years’ experience at Validapro where she completed numerous audits and support for FDA compliance.